Product Description: Thirty-three years later, here's a modern day take on Mike's debut pro model on Powell-Peralta in 1991—a graphic that just so happened to be drawn by me. What's funny is that ever since then there has been a fair degree of confusion behind the origins of the graphic (unfortunately so in some extreme cases). I've never been very good at explaining such things, but maybe even worse so in this particular case because the story didn't exactly pertain to Mike. You see, I wasn't having an easy time coming up with a graphic for him back then. Everything I was throwing at the wall wasn't landing with George [Powell], who had the iron fist when it came to green lighting anything coming out of the art department. In and around that time of struggle, George suggested I go to the library and rummage around the art history aisle for inspiration. It was there, somewhere between volumes dedicated to Expressionism—an art movement described by Wikipedia as "presenting the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas"—that I married my predominant mood of the moment, frustration, with a woodcutty chip off the Russian Revolution art block. So, it's ultimately a graphic based on and born out of my exasperation with George. Fortunately, Mike's style of skating—basically shaking a vert ramp down to its very foundations through raw speed, power, and fury (refer to his opening sequence in Bones Brigade Video 8)—fit the graphic vibe as well. Or, in other words that I could never have come up with myself, I presented Mike’s skating solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke a mood or idea. Ahem. All that said, if I was ever asked to rattle off my Top 5 personal graphics drawn at Powell the Frazier would definitely be one of them. It was an honor to draw then and an honor to come back now and revisit. Thanks, Mike! —Cliver
Warning: Since the dawn of mankind, top and bottom stain veneers come in a variety of colors and the ones shown here are for display purposes only. In other words, we cannot guarantee a specific color so please be pleasantly surprised with the one you receive and not get all bent and butt-hurt about it.
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